・・・・・
Just stepping out of the palace made me feel truly alive. The waterfall, nestled under the shade of forest trees, was refreshingly cool and completely unlike the stifling heat inside my room. It was cool enough that I didn’t even need to take off my clothes to stop sweating.
Everything was great up to that point, but the problem was the countless court ladies and eunuchs who had followed me when I left the palace.
It wasn’t really because of me, but because the king had come along, that so many followed, including even the royal physician, since my body hadn’t fully healed. Seeing that, I thought maybe I’d caused unnecessary trouble.
The air was refreshing, but to maintain distance from the king, the court ladies and eunuchs couldn’t come near the waterfall and stayed gathered far off.
I continuously dipped my hand in the water, but feeling uneasy, I kept glancing down, until the king's hand gently turned my chin back toward him.
“How are you feeling?”
“I am fine. It's cool and not too hot.”
“That’s a relief.”
“...Thank you... By the way, when do you plan to return?”
“You can stay as long as you want.”
“...The ones you came with are down there.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Still, it’s hot… I’m fine since I’m by the water, though.”
Swish.
Flinch.
“Aren’t you already overwhelmed just worrying about me?”
“Pardon...?”
“Did you really let your guard down completely just because I held you gently?”
“Th… that’s not it.”
“Then, did you keep your guard up?”
“…Not at all.…”
I decided to stop looking down and instead met the king’s steady, silent gaze. After all, as he said, just thinking about this man, Neuru, standing before me was overwhelming enough.
“Isn’t it truly amazing?”
“What do you mean?”
"I’m here because of you alone, that’s what I mean."
It was embarrassing to say it out loud, but it was truly remarkable. The court ladies and eunuchs followed in silence, yet every commoner we passed on the way to the waterfall bowed low to the ground and did not rise. No one but the king and his court was allowed to enter this waterfall, which made me all the more uneasy.
Consciously keeping my eyes from looking down and turning instead toward the forest where a refreshing breeze blew, I soon saw the king call over a eunuch.
Although the eunuch must have been tired, he ran up without resting. The king then personally gave an order and soon gestured for the eunuch to leave at once.
The eunuch, clearly flustered, bowed and departed, and before I knew it, all the court ladies and eunuchs who had been nearby disappeared from view.
As I stared blankly at the scene, the king sat on the chair the eunuchs had brought, crossed his long legs, and rested his chin on his hand.
“Ready now?”
“Did you… order them to leave?”
"I told them to come back around evening."
“Ah…”
“Isn’t this the waterside you’ve been wanting to visit? Go ahead and step in.”
“Huh? But my clothes are like this...”
“You can just take them off. What’s the problem?”
“Ta… take them off…”
In that moment, I bitterly realised how fortunate it was that the court ladies and eunuchs had been down below and regretted it deeply.
How on earth did I end up creating an opportunity to be alone with the king?
Honestly, even if I had continued preparing for the civil service exam, I would have quit before long anyway. With this level of intelligence, how could I possibly pass such a difficult exam?
“It’s okay... It feels cool even with my clothes on."
"Now that I think of it…"
Swish.
‘Please, just stay right there in that chair.’
When the king suddenly stood up and walked closer, I flinched and stepped back with one foot.
But when his gaze lingered on the leg I had stepped back, I moved it forward again.
“You seem pretty embarrassed to undress in front of me, even though I said I’ve already seen everything.”
“…For a woman… to undress… how could it… not be embarrassing… Even if you’ve seen it before, it wouldn’t make it any less so."
I was so flustered that my words came out all jumbled.
Chuckle.
“If you're embraced countless times, even your embarrassment will disappear.”
“!”
The king’s hand suddenly touched the jeogori I was wearing. With no court ladies, eunuchs, or even a single bird in sight, I felt as if I were trapped inside a vast room that was the forest.
I firmly grabbed the king’s hand as he tried to undo my jeogori. But since he said the reason he embraced me so roughly before was because I held onto him, I quickly let go again.
“…I’m really fine…”
“In any case, your body is too sore to be held, yet you keep provoking me.”
At the king’s words, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. He was indeed the one who had embraced me gently not long ago, and the one who had just granted my request, yet he was a cynical man. Not knowing when or how he might do something terrifying, fear suddenly flashed in my eyes.
Watching me, he soon took off the outer garment he was wearing. But he didn’t stop there. Like someone preparing to bathe, he slowly peeled off layer after layer of clothing while keeping his eyes fixed on me.
“I, the king, have taken off my clothes, so surely you wouldn’t dare keep yours on.”
Gulp.
“Follow me in.”
The king strode boldly into the cold water wearing only his sokbaji (underpants). Though standing in the shade, the sunlight filtering through made his toned body gleam brightly. Before I knew it, he was waist-deep in the water, turned toward me, and beckoned with a gesture.
I pondered. What would happen if I kept stalling here and refused the king?
As memories of recent events flooded my mind, I reluctantly took off the jeogori the king had been about to loosen.
‘It’s okay. Where I come from, people even wear bikinis.’
I carefully took off my jeogori so it wouldn’t get wet, and though I was very embarrassed, I neatly folded my chima to one side. Turning away to avoid the king’s gaze, I felt a prickling sensation on my back and realised he was still watching me.
Though it was a different waterfall, being undressed here brought back memories of that night when General Hunmu jumped in after me. The scar on my arm had faded so much it was barely visible now, but I would never forget how gently he massaged me to ease the pain, even if I later ended up disappointed in him again.
Unable to bring myself to take off the sokchima (underskirt), I removed my outer garment and carefully turned away. Sure enough, the king, who had been watching me, glanced at my sokchima and gestured with his eyes for me to come in.
The waterfall water, which I cautiously dipped my feet into first, was icy cold. The heat that had been rising inside me seemed to vanish in an instant, and it made me think that if I stayed like this for a while, I might actually start feeling cold.
But the traditional hanbok was really uncomfortable. As the sokchima got awkwardly soaked up to the knees, the weight made it terribly difficult move.
Well, the king was tall, so he could go deeper, but I probably couldn’t go that deep. Still, since I had come this far, maybe it was okay to stop around here, right?
Splash!
"Oh my gosh!"
But then, it happened.
As I was walking slowly, head bowed, while holding onto my sokchima, the king’s hand suddenly jerked me around. I hadn’t even noticed him coming.
In an instant, my body wobbled and I fell into the water, but the king’s hand slipped under my armpit and swiftly lifted me up. Though the water reached my waist, he held me so that my chest, where my heart was, stayed dry. Startled by the sudden cold, my muscles tensed up, and I clung tightly to the king.
“You shouldn’t suddenly pull me like that!”
“At that pace, you’ll be walking all night.”
"...It’s because the sokchima is heavy."
“So, didn’t I help you?”
“…I am… short, so I cannot go in very deep.”
“That’s why I’m holding you.”
Instinctively, I tried to avoid stepping into the deep water where I would have to rely on the king’s arm, but he said he was holding me and strode confidently toward the waterfall. In that moment, I couldn’t let go of the arm he had wrapped around me, nor could I push away the hand awkwardly holding my underarm.
If the eunuchs and court ladies saw this, they would probably gape in shock and fall backward.
While leaning on the king, I found myself already in the middle of the waterfall basin. The water only reached around his waist, rippling against him, but for me, my feet could no longer touch the ground.
"How far... do you intend to go in?"
“Who knows.”
"If we go any deeper… my feet will not touch the ground anymore.”
“I said I’d give you a chance to get to know me, didn’t I?”
“...Yes?”
“Think about it. Figure out what you need to do here to make me stop going deeper.”
How could I know what to say to make the king, who thought so differently from others, stop going deeper?
With my feet not touching the ground, I had no choice but to cling on and look at him with an embarrassed expression, but the king took another step toward the waterfall.
I wasn’t usually the type to fear water. But maybe because I once jumped into a waterfall and endured intense pain, I now felt a fear unlike before as the water grew deeper.
Though General Hunmu saved me, the brief moment in the ice-cold water when I couldn’t breathe and thought I was about to die kept coming back vividly to me.
“Enough! …Don’t go in.”
“Didn’t I tell you to think it over?”
“…But I don't know…”
Swish.
“Your Majesty!”
Before I knew it, the water had risen to the king’s chest, and the word ‘Your Majesty,’ something I had never uttered before, escaped my lips. The king paused briefly and gazed at me quietly.
“Your Majesty?”
“…Everyone… calls you… ‘Your Majesty’… so I too…”
“Do you want to become part of the palace as well?”
The king’s words about the people in the filthy palace came to mind. My eyes wavered uncertainly, wondering if he was annoyed by me awkwardly imitating them like this.
“If the title ‘Your Majesty’ displeases you… I won’t use it.”
“...”
“…But I don’t know how to address you… and right now, the water is too deep.”
“You wanted to come here because it was hot.”
“But if it's this deep…”
“So, think it over.”
No matter how much I said the water was deep, he didn’t stop. So if that was the case, what the king wanted was action.
Watching him calmly gaze at me with those pitch-black eyes, I realised what kind of action he wanted.
But as I looked at him in the water, unfamiliar emotions that I had never felt in the palace began to surface. It wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid of the king, nor that I felt closer to him, yet being tangled together like this and gazing at each other stirred a strange, indescribable feeling.
What on earth was I feeling in a situation as unusual as this?
The king’s legs moved deeper into the water again. At that moment, the memory of struggling to breathe resurfaced, and unable to think clearly, I clung tightly to him.
My arms hugged him so tightly that my wet breasts pressed against his chest.
“Please stop going any further…”
Though the waterfall’s cool water poured down relentlessly, washing away the heat, everything around the king and me in the centre fell silent in an instant.
I wasn’t sure. Maybe I was the only one feeling that way, but when I first desperately clung to him, all I could sense was the steady beat of the king’s heart and nothing else.
Surprisingly, the king stopped walking and didn’t move any further. Still not fully free from the painful memory of barely being able to breathe, I couldn’t easily release my hands that were holding him tightly.
Only after enough time had passed for me to realise how awkwardly tight my grip was did I slowly pull away and look at the king. His expression was blank, his hair and face slightly wet from the cascading water, and he exuded a unique aura, as if he were posing alone for a photoshoot.
What would it have been like if I had met him not as the king, but as an ordinary person in this world?
Being alone with him outside the palace, I found myself curious about things I had never even thought about before.
“When I look at you.”
“Yes…?”
“It hasn’t even been a month, but it feels like I’ve known you for several months. I wonder why that is.”
“...”
“From now on, cling to me tightly like this and hold on. Then you’ll be able to get what you want more easily.”
Swish.
Flinch.
The king’s one hand gripped my waist firmly, while the other gently caressed my lips. My soaked sokchima billowed like lotus petals, yet before I realised it, his hand in the water had loosened it.
In the blink of an eye, I found myself dressed only in my underwear, and the loosened sokchima floated down toward the deepest part of the waterfall.
Swoosh.
“Gasp!”
“Look at me.”
As I reached out to grab the sokchima that wasn’t even within reach, the hand that had been gently stroking my lower lip twisted my chin sharply, causing a sting.
Before entering the waterfall, I tried to reassure myself by thinking I had even worn bikinis back home, but now, with our bodies touching in the water with both of us in just our underwear, my lips went completely dry.
Swish.
“!”
But my dry lips soon became damp. It was because the king’s water-soaked lips had touched mine.
His soft lips found an opening and slipped his tongue inside, tracing my palate and leading into a kiss that seemed endless. In the deep water where my feet couldn’t reach the bottom, I leaned on the king for support. Even as the kiss pressed deeply without giving me a chance to breathe, I couldn’t push him away. I only clung to him even tighter.
The hand that had been firmly supporting my waist pulled me closer. His tongue, probing even deeper than before, felt intense and sensual, almost like making love. It seemed as if, unable to hold me properly because I was unwell, he was expressing that desire through the kiss instead.
Was my mind really that full of dirty thoughts? To think of sex from just a simple kiss. What on earth was wrong with my head?
“Haa…”
When our lips parted, the king readily led me to the shallow edge of the water. To be honest, even though we had slept together, I couldn’t properly face him during the kiss. Wearing only my underwear, I stood awkwardly by the water’s edge, unable to leave.
Splash.
The loosened sokchima kept sinking and floating back up in the waterfall’s water, and soon the king dove in without hesitation. He swam to where the sokchima floated near the waterfall, in water too deep to judge. Having spent every day in the palace, how could he swim like that? For a moment, he reminded me of General Hunmu, who once saved me.
The king retrieved the sokchima and walked toward me with his hair completely soaked. As he came closer, his wet sokbaji clung low, precariously revealing his pubic bone.
Though I was wearing a chest covering, I crossed my arms to shield myself. The king gently moved my arms away with his hands, then skillfully wrapped the wet sokchima around me and tied it with its ribbon. He ran his hand through my damp hair, and then he stepped out of the water.
But when he saw me struggling to walk properly because of the sokchima, he reached out his hand as if inviting me to hold on.
It wasn’t really an act to impress me. He wasn’t the kind of person to care about manners or how to treat a woman, at least by the standards of the world I lived in.
Yet, because my image of him had been so poor, even in that small gesture of reaching out his hand, I found myself thinking for the first time that maybe he wasn’t such a bad person after all.
And carefully, I placed my hand on top of his.
Translator's Corner:
Deepest apologies for the lack of updates, everyone! (╥ᆺ╥；) My motivation has been a bit low lately, and I've also been busy with some life events. Moreover, WIX has been having some issues again...
Anyway, since ASDUTM is most popular, I'll focus my attention on translating it and pause the other two novels I'm working on until I have more time. Once again, sorry about the lack of updates! (I will proofread and post 3 more chapters tomorrow! I'm heading to bed now, so good night!!)
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